How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You're a Terrorist

A look inside the "disposition matrix" that determines when -- or if -- the administration will pursue a suspected militant

John Walker Lindh, an American captured by U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan, is led away by a Northern Alliance soldier in 2001. (Reuters)

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has begun to formalize a so-called "disposition matrix" for suspected terrorists abroad: a continuously
evolving database that spells out the intelligence on targets and various strategies, including contingencies, for handling them. Although the government
has not spelled out the steps involved in deciding how to treat various terrorists, a look at U.S. actions in the past makes evident a rough decision tree.

Understanding these procedures is particularly important for one of the most vexing, and potentially most dangerous, categories of terrorists: U.S.
citizens. Over the years, U.S. authorities have responded with astonishing variety to American nationals suspected of terrorism, from ignoring their
activities to conducting lethal drone strikes. All U.S. terrorists are not created equal. And the U.S. response depends heavily on the role of allies, the
degree of threat the suspect poses, and the imminence of that threat -- along with other factors.

What follows is a flow chart (click here, or the image below, for the full interactive feature) that takes us through the criteria and decision points that can lead to a suspect terrorist's being ignored as a minor
nuisance, being prosecuted in federal court, being held in a Pakistani prison, or being met with the business end of a Hellfire missile.

1. Territorial Jurisdiction

If a suspected terrorist is in the United States, the answer is easy: The only way to deal with him is to arrest and prosecute him in the civilian criminal
justice system. So first, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies will monitor him to learn about the full extent of his activities and gather evidence
to determine whether he has in fact committed a crime. And if so, they will arrest him. The Bush administration tried it for citizens caught domestically
only once, in the case of Jose Padilla, and eventually gave up and tried Padilla in civilian court. The Obama administration has stated that it will use
the civilian justice system exclusively both for domestic captures in general and for citizens, wherever our forces get them.

Though it remains controversial, the domestic criminal justice system is actually one of the workhorses of American counterterrorism. Since 9/11, the
United States has handled more Americans suspected than all other options combined -- both using charges of terrorism itself and using more inchoate
charges like conspiracy and material support for terrorism. In addition, a significant number of Americans suspected of involvement in terrorism have been
convicted of lesser, sometimes unrelated, offenses charges.

If the suspect is overseas, however, the complications begin. The remainder of this flowchart conveys the steps and decision points that the administration
takes, explicitly or implicitly, when deciding the fate of a suspected American terrorist.

2. Return to the United States

Some suspects may be outside of the United States and have plans to return -- concrete, specific plans the government knows about. Abu Zubaydah, a jihadist
logistician, had reportedly told interrogators that he knew of individuals planning to conduct a radiological attack on the United States. Based on this
and other intelligence, the name of Jose Padilla came to the attention of U.S. officials and, after Padilla applied for a replacement passport in Pakistan,
U.S. officials learned he was traveling home to the United States. The FBI tailed him when his plane went through Zurich, and then he was quickly arrested
after arrival in Chicago's O'Hare airport. Padilla was initially held in military custody. Today, however, that would not happen. A suspect the government
knew was on his way home would, like the suspect already here, be detained and enter the criminal justice system directly.

Most terrorists camped out overseas, however, are not rushing back, and even when they are, trusting that a suspected American terrorism suspect will
return home to be arrested is risky. Locals may tip him off that the United States is seeking him (yes, it is usually a him), or he may decide for his own
reasons to delay or cancel his return. In addition, allowing a suspected terrorist on a plane -- even if thoroughly searched -- is nail-biting for
officials involved.

So, not surprisingly, it is rare that an individual will be both known to be returning and also allowed to do so. Most of the time, officials cannot simply
assume that a suspect will come back into their laps.

3. Is there a Reliable Ally to Handle the Problem?

If the suspect is abroad and not headed home, the question of which country he is in becomes important. Is he in a country whose government will reliably
keep an eye on him -- and arrest him, if need be? Is that government functional enough to pull off an arrest, or does it lack control over significant
parts of its territory? Is it a country that will grossly mistreat the suspect in a fashion that might prejudice his ability to get a fair trial? Is it a
country with an extradition relationship with the United States?

The answers to these questions vary a great deal among the many countries in which U.S. nationals suspected of terrorism have taken refuge. If an American
is living in Britain, for example, a country with strong legal institutions and a cooperative working relationship with the United States, the issue looks
very different from when an American suspect is in the tribal areas of Pakistan -- or the ungoverned areas of Yemen, a country with a history of failure to
prevent al Qaeda jail breaks. Americans in Somalia, a country with no functioning government at all, are a different story still. And then there's Saudi
Arabia -- a highly effective police state that has had no trouble arresting American jihadists, but whose treatment of them afterward has required careful
monitoring to make sure that statements given were not elicited through torture.

4. When an Ally Will Transfer

When an ally is willing to arrest and transfer a suspect to U.S. custody, suspects inevitably wind up back in criminal-justice land. This is in some ways
the ideal solution, as it requires only law enforcement and intelligence cooperation with allies, not a capture operation involving U.S. forces or a kill
order. But it does sometimes end up requiring delicate litigation over the suspect's treatment abroad. For example, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali -- a young man from
Virginia -- was arrested in Saudi Arabia for involvement with an al Qaeda cell. He was transferred some time later to U.S. custody to face trial for
conspiring to, among other things, kill President George W. Bush. The major issue in his case was whether the highly incriminating statements he made in
Saudi custody were voluntary or not. Deciding this question required, remarkably, testimony by Saudi intelligence officials who interrogated Abu Ali. Abu
Ali was ultimately convicted and given a lengthy prison term.

5. When an Ally Won't Transfer

At times, an ally will not transfer a suspect to U.S. jurisdiction, instead preferring to try him on its own. In December 2009, Pakistan arrested five
American Muslims from the Washington, D.C. area who had traveled abroad for training and to fight U.S. soldiers by joining up with the Taliban. The United
States sought their extradition, but Pakistan refused. In 2010, a Pakistani court found them guilty and sentenced them to 10 years in prison for conspiring
against the Pakistani state.

An ally may wish to try Americans on its own for several reasons. They may be breaking local laws and could pose a real threat to the ally in question --
the ostensible reasons for trying them locally rather than extraditing them. Often more importantly, the trial allows the local government to claim
politically that it is defending its own people and is doing so by going after unpopular foreigners rather than, in Pakistan's case, taking on dangerous
indigenous criminals who enjoy more legitimacy and who have powerful allies in the country. In addition, refusing an extradition request is a way of
standing up to the United States and gaining, or at least not losing, nationalist credibility.

From a U.S. point of view, it may be easier to let the ally do the work. From a counterterrorism point of view, these potentially dangerous individuals are
off the street for a decade, while a trial in the U.S. might result in a more lenient sentence or perhaps the individuals going free. Although the United
States went through the motions to get the D.C.-five extradited, a lawyer for the men's families, Nina Ginsburg, was "very disturbed by the lack of
involvement by the U.S. government to protect the rights" of those in Pakistani custody.

6. Do We Care?

At times, authorities may suspect an individual overseas of involvement in terrorism yet not deem him dangerous enough to warrant any extensive
intervention.

The United States may choose not go after a suspected terrorist because officials believe he poses at most a minor threat to the United States. If he
returned home, they would arrest him, but they're not going to make a significant effort to push allies to nab him or to deploy U.S. overseas assets to do
so. In practice, many such individuals primarily pose threats to an ally rather than to U.S. citizens or institutions. For example, Daniel Maldonado
traveled to Somalia in 2005 to wage jihad on behalf of al Shabaab, a Somali jihadist group. When Kenya invaded Somalia in 2007, Maldonado was
turned over to the United States, but the Bush administration had not actively pursued him before Kenya captured him. Maldonado was helping a noxious
Somali group, but he was simply one soldier among thousands, and at the time al Shabaab was less tied to al Qaeda than it is today.

Sometimes, the United States will simply indict a low-priority individual but then do little else. Adam Gadahn -- a senior al Qaeda spokesman and advisor
to Ayman Al-Zawahiri -- is perhaps the best example of this today. The Justice Department indicted him in 2005 for "providing material support" for al
Qaeda, a broad charge regularly used in terrorism cases. In 2006, Gadahn was charged with treason, the first American so-charged in over 50 years. Yet
these seemingly strong actions belie an obvious limit: Gadahn is outside U.S. and allied control, and his arrest does not appear to be an operational
priority, though officials would certainly welcome it should it occur.

7. The Plausibility of Capture

If the suspect is someone officials care about enough to take action against, they face another question: can they catch him? Capture operations are
difficult and dangerous, and like targeting operations, they require knowing exactly where the suspect will be at the right time. Authorities might not
tolerate Gadahn, for example, if they were able to locate him in a place where they could conduct a capture operation with tolerable risks to U.S. military
or covert forces.

We know of no post-9/11 case in which authorities have launched an overseas capture operation against a U.S. national, though there have been several cases
-- for example, John Walker Lindh and Yasser Hamdi -- in which U.S. nationals have been swept up along with other captured enemy forces. Still, Attorney
General Eric Holder specifically included the question of whether capture was "implausible" as a deciding factor in a speech addressing the appropriate
times to use lethal force on U.S. nationals overseas. Following Holder's rubric, any person captured would necessarily be routed into the domestic criminal
justice system.

8. The Operations Question

U.S. officials draw a sharp distinction between propagandists like Gadahn and people like Padilla or even the DC-Five, who planned or were potentially
directly involved in operations. In theory, it is operators who matter: words do not kill, or at least not directly, while someone willing to pick up a gun
or plant a bomb leaves little doubt about his bloody plans.

Propagandists, to some degree, are also protected under U.S. law. Glorifying jihad and saying that Americans fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, or even
living ordinary lives stateside, deserve death, is not in itself a crime. So even Anwar al-Awlaki, who inspired Americans and Western Muslims in general to
take up jihad, was not aggressively targeted until he was linked to attacks on U.S. airlines and aviation targets in the United Kingdom -- thus going from
"propagandist" to "operator."

In practice -- though not in law -- this line is questionable. Awlaki's biggest success was inspiring Nidal Malik Hassan, who is charged with shooting 13
Americans at Fort Hood in 2009 -- the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11. Awlaki himself did not play an operational role, but by inspiring
Hassan, his propaganda proved lethal. Even more importantly, al Qaeda itself sees propaganda as at the core of its operations. Osama bin Laden himself told
Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader, that 90 percent of his battle would be fought in the media.

Propagandists attract the money and foot soldiers that enable the organization to conduct operations, and Washington's reluctance to recognize that with
regard to its own citizens is an important advantage for al Qaeda. The result is that non-operational figures abroad -- however dangerous -- will tend to
be tolerated to the extent they cannot be captured.

9. The Imminent Threat

Not even all operational figures can be lawfully targeted with lethal force. Holder's speech only defends as lawful the targeting of a senior operational
figure who cannot be captured when he poses an imminent threat to the United States -- though Holder holds open the possibility targeting might
satisfy the law in a broader range of circumstances.

In practice, the United States has targeted with lethal force only one of its own citizens: Anwar al-Awlaki. Three others, including Awlaki's teenage son
and propagandist Samir Khan, have been killed in drone strikes, but none of them appears to have been the target of the strike; all were considered
collateral damage. The United States uses the word "imminent" in a looser fashion than its colloquial meaning suggests -- not to refer to an inevitable
immediate threat (a bomb going off tomorrow) but to an unfolding chain of events that, left uninterrupted, will produce dead Americans. Even this
understanding of imminence, however, leaves another gap: the operational leader who poses a non-imminent threat. This may be an empty set, but that group
of people would also seem to fall into a zone of de facto tolerance.

Daniel Byman is a professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and the research director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.